Twenty years of memories, for sale, $3,000.
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
News from Sweden
Yndi got a message from Jamie this summer. I posted this picture on the Gotland Ponies in America facebook page. Pernilla Jobs, from Sweden, Yndis birthplace, had this to say:
"Yndi's mom Madicken was awarded the ELIT-diploma recently, posthumously, for her progeny. Yndi could be her last foal still alive, nice to see her getting the pampering she surely deserves."
Saturday, November 07, 2015
Auto buying stress, Auto repair stress
We agreed to buy the truck. The actual purchase will take place Monday, giving both the seller and us time to get out ducks in a row. Cashiers checks from two financial institutions must be obtained with the correct spelling to the Payble To. There is a waiting period for availability of transferred funds. The seller has to arrange for a way home from his workplace where the sale will take place. DMV forms in order too. And time to check the VIN in Carfacts. There are weirdnesses, of course. Trucks like this are not usually for sale until they have many miles. This one has only 21K. Its barely 11 months old and we are the third owner, and it came from TX. We have had to decided the weirdnesses are worth the risk. Still stressful to spend this much money.
I have been trying to band x-foster rabbit Kasey with widower bun Pierre. After a month of bonding exercises and a stress bonding of a three hour trip to the vet in Los Altos during the commute, They got to spend an afternoon in the same BUNker. The plan was to allow them to spend the night if the afternoon went well. Sadly, after I went to bed, there was chasing. I got up and separated them so I could sleep. That was Thursday. Today, Saturday, Pierre escaped during Kasey's playtime out, and after he requested grooming(he is SO ready to be bonded!) Kasey humped his head instead, but that was OK and now they are fine.
I picked Joseph up from work yesterday and we stopped to pick up the parts to fix the Bronco. He has figured out that he can do it himself and moved on from his place of despair. He had reached a hopeless stage where his resources of money and knowledge could not meet, and I offered him financial help. He asked for the promised money it before he ran out of his own money and I didn't cough it up, asking instead for an outline of finances on paper. He did that, and now I have to summarize under his disorganized mathies so I can get a clear picture and he can see how to present financial info(without me asking for clarification and trying to teach him directly, which wouldn't work). In the meantime, he figured stuff out better and may not need as much money.
I have been trying to band x-foster rabbit Kasey with widower bun Pierre. After a month of bonding exercises and a stress bonding of a three hour trip to the vet in Los Altos during the commute, They got to spend an afternoon in the same BUNker. The plan was to allow them to spend the night if the afternoon went well. Sadly, after I went to bed, there was chasing. I got up and separated them so I could sleep. That was Thursday. Today, Saturday, Pierre escaped during Kasey's playtime out, and after he requested grooming(he is SO ready to be bonded!) Kasey humped his head instead, but that was OK and now they are fine.
I picked Joseph up from work yesterday and we stopped to pick up the parts to fix the Bronco. He has figured out that he can do it himself and moved on from his place of despair. He had reached a hopeless stage where his resources of money and knowledge could not meet, and I offered him financial help. He asked for the promised money it before he ran out of his own money and I didn't cough it up, asking instead for an outline of finances on paper. He did that, and now I have to summarize under his disorganized mathies so I can get a clear picture and he can see how to present financial info(without me asking for clarification and trying to teach him directly, which wouldn't work). In the meantime, he figured stuff out better and may not need as much money.
Friday, November 06, 2015
Craigslist Love/Hate
We are trying to buy a truck. We have a lead on one, on Craiglsist. Its such a good deal we feel frantic, we are afraid too many people are also pursuing this truck. We have no idea if that's true. It is stressful.
Harry came to Ed Levin yesterday and gave me a lesson, we tried to get the pole and pole straps better. There was a lot of finagling. Every time you change one thing, a bunch of other things have to change to accommodate it. We think the last thing to do is replace the pole straps, which can't get short enough, with quick links.
We passed the golf course on our drive. There was a group of golfers and one of them saw us. She tried to point us out to her friends, who were not interested in anything that was not on the golf course. Finally, someone looked, and she poked someone else end pointed. She obviously had more social clout and it was a chain reaction until the all the golfers were doing a pretty good meercat imitation. It was fun.
Someone else wanted to buy both ponies. Sorry. Harry told them it would be 100K each.
"Did you sneeze on your screen?"
"Yes, with coffee."
"I thought so."
Harry came to Ed Levin yesterday and gave me a lesson, we tried to get the pole and pole straps better. There was a lot of finagling. Every time you change one thing, a bunch of other things have to change to accommodate it. We think the last thing to do is replace the pole straps, which can't get short enough, with quick links.
We passed the golf course on our drive. There was a group of golfers and one of them saw us. She tried to point us out to her friends, who were not interested in anything that was not on the golf course. Finally, someone looked, and she poked someone else end pointed. She obviously had more social clout and it was a chain reaction until the all the golfers were doing a pretty good meercat imitation. It was fun.
Someone else wanted to buy both ponies. Sorry. Harry told them it would be 100K each.
"Did you sneeze on your screen?"
"Yes, with coffee."
"I thought so."
Thursday, November 05, 2015
The Fuzzy Line.
I have spent four and a half hours sitting in traffic between yesterday and the day before. I took Kasey to her Rabbit Haven new adoptee vet appointment in Los Altos and got stuck in commute traffic coming home. I went to the DMV and got a form for Joseph and got stuck in commute traffic coming home from that. It was a DMV form that cant be printed on the computer and has to be an original, not a photocopy with the signatures on it.
Its his crazy junk truck problem. We bought him a '98 Acura to drive when he graduated high school and got his license. He chose the Acura. He really wanted a Bronco but we said no because of the high insurance cost. The Acura was a little high maintenance but many of the problems were from not checking oil and coolant. It was old and needed oil and coolant regularly.
He talked us into signing it over to him so he could swap it for a '90 Bronco. We told him he was now in charge of paying his own insurance. The Bronco is a piece of shit. He has gotten so deep into dept trying to keep it running. Sadly, he spent most of his paychecks on eating out and buying extras stuff for the bronco like a sound system and light bar and things to make it louder, instead of saving so he could afford to fix it the next time it broke down. Its been sitting in front or our house for two months now because he could not keep it running, nor control his impulse to drive it somewhere if he could get it started and end up making it worse.
We are helping him out because that is what families do, but we are not loaning him a car because then there would be no problem for him from making a bad decision. Plus, having him drive our truck makes it very high maintenance for us. He drives like an idiot and he has to pay associated costs of that until he figures it out. Parenting is tough. There is a very fuzzy line between helping and enabling.
So what he decided to do was buy another Bronco from Craigslist from a guy who got it from a picknpull. The sale to the picknpull was a lien sale. It isn't licensed. He figured he could sacrifice it for parts to fix the current heap. Turns out is is in better condition that the heap he wanted to fix, so now he has to strip the first heap of anything usable and get the new heap registered and repaired.
He is nineteen years old and I believe this is age appropriate behavior. He is learning a lot, though it seems to be trial by fire. A lot of things in life are just that.
Its his crazy junk truck problem. We bought him a '98 Acura to drive when he graduated high school and got his license. He chose the Acura. He really wanted a Bronco but we said no because of the high insurance cost. The Acura was a little high maintenance but many of the problems were from not checking oil and coolant. It was old and needed oil and coolant regularly.
He talked us into signing it over to him so he could swap it for a '90 Bronco. We told him he was now in charge of paying his own insurance. The Bronco is a piece of shit. He has gotten so deep into dept trying to keep it running. Sadly, he spent most of his paychecks on eating out and buying extras stuff for the bronco like a sound system and light bar and things to make it louder, instead of saving so he could afford to fix it the next time it broke down. Its been sitting in front or our house for two months now because he could not keep it running, nor control his impulse to drive it somewhere if he could get it started and end up making it worse.
We are helping him out because that is what families do, but we are not loaning him a car because then there would be no problem for him from making a bad decision. Plus, having him drive our truck makes it very high maintenance for us. He drives like an idiot and he has to pay associated costs of that until he figures it out. Parenting is tough. There is a very fuzzy line between helping and enabling.
So what he decided to do was buy another Bronco from Craigslist from a guy who got it from a picknpull. The sale to the picknpull was a lien sale. It isn't licensed. He figured he could sacrifice it for parts to fix the current heap. Turns out is is in better condition that the heap he wanted to fix, so now he has to strip the first heap of anything usable and get the new heap registered and repaired.
He is nineteen years old and I believe this is age appropriate behavior. He is learning a lot, though it seems to be trial by fire. A lot of things in life are just that.
Tuesday, November 03, 2015
Really.
Really.
I ordered Buns-of-Silver blog in a book. An indulgence(? really) that I figured was OK after I got some money for licensing art to BTizzy. I think it closes a chapter. I can see Silver's grave from the bathroom window at the Mountain House. She was a very good rabbit.
The house is moving right along. We ordered the counter top for the kitchen and bathrooms last week. Dave finished the install of the cabinets in the kitchen and is working on the under-cabinet lighting which is going to look great. I like to have low lights at night so I can move around but not feel like its daytime.
On my carriage, I made the adjustments of the pole back to where it was before. Harry Council recommended some changes and I tried them, but they created more problems than they solved. Francois helped me hook the girls, but with a shorter pole, the breeching couldn't engage and we had to break constantly going down hill to keep the carriage from banging into them.
Kacey, the foster turned adopted bunny, has her free vet visit today. Rabbit Haven pays for a vet visit to one of their vets for each adopted rabbit. I am going slow bonding her to Pierre, so I will use this car trip to take them int he same carrier help the bond. I got the new bigger carrier with my 20% discount at For Other Living Things that came with the adoption.
Having two bunnies that are not bonded is hard because I need two Bunkers. Kasey is a leaper and hers has to have a ceiling. I am hoping that when she is bonded to Pierre, she will not feel the need to go out.
I ordered Buns-of-Silver blog in a book. An indulgence(? really) that I figured was OK after I got some money for licensing art to BTizzy. I think it closes a chapter. I can see Silver's grave from the bathroom window at the Mountain House. She was a very good rabbit.
The house is moving right along. We ordered the counter top for the kitchen and bathrooms last week. Dave finished the install of the cabinets in the kitchen and is working on the under-cabinet lighting which is going to look great. I like to have low lights at night so I can move around but not feel like its daytime.
On my carriage, I made the adjustments of the pole back to where it was before. Harry Council recommended some changes and I tried them, but they created more problems than they solved. Francois helped me hook the girls, but with a shorter pole, the breeching couldn't engage and we had to break constantly going down hill to keep the carriage from banging into them.
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